One Endless Summer

by Laurie Ellingham

  ‘No more treatment,’ Lizzie said, surprised by the confidence in her voice.

  Six months.

  She knew she should be devastated, and somewhere inside, she probably was, but all she could think about was the wall in front of her. Six months without being stuck in hospital, without throwing up, without sitting in a stuffy waiting room waiting for her turn to be pinned to a table in a dark room whilst radiation was zapped into her body. Six months without having to hope.

  A jittery relief gushed through her. She could choose.

  ‘Lizzie.’ Her mum stood up and wrapped her in her arms, drawing out a hundred memories from her childhood of being in her mum’s arms. Goodnight hugs, hospital hugs, grazed-knee hugs, mean-friends hug, sick hugs. They were all there, unleashed from the nostalgia of her mother’s arms, her bosom and her floral perfume. Lizzie’s throat tightened again. All of a sudden it seemed as though she’d swallowed a gobstopper whole, and now it was lodged on top of her windpipe.

  ‘You’re disappointed,’ her mum said. ‘We all are. But don’t make a decision in the heat of the moment like this, please.’ Her final plea came out a whisper.

  ‘Evelyn,’ her father said, standing up. ‘Let’s hear what Lizzie has to say.’

  Her mum sniffed and stood back. Four pairs of eyes stared at her. Dr Habibi’s were black and narrowed a little, his forehead furrowed with concern. Her mum’s, almost grey through the tears, and wide like a wild animal caught in the headlights of a passing car. Aaron, still rooted to his chair, his body twisted. His bottom lip quivered a little until he pulled it between his teeth.

  Lizzie looked away. Hugging her mum, looking at Aaron, fractured the wisps of certainty she felt inside her, and she didn’t want that. Her dad stepped forwards and rested a large warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw in his eyes the acceptance she needed. He understood. The gobstopper shifted and all at once she could breathe again.

  ‘I don’t want to have any more treatment,’ she said, turning her gaze back to the wall. ‘I’ve had a lifetime of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and operations, and scans. And I’m right back where I started. Now, I want to choose. And I’m choosing to live. Six months might not seem like a long time, but it’s six months of living in a way I never have before. No more back and forths …’

  As Lizzie spoke, the certainty grew and she clung to it. The only certainty in life was death, she thought, wondering where she’d heard that saying. She’d walked into Dr Habibi’s office with hope and she was going to walk out with certainty.

  CHAPTER 65

  Six months ago

  Lizzie

  At some point on the tube journey home a jittering had taken hold of Lizzie’s body. Another symptom or a reaction to the events in Dr Habibi’s office? The latter this time, Lizzie thought. The key in her hand danced and scratched against the lock before finding its place and releasing the catch in the door.

  The smell of mildew and mould, and Samantha’s vanilla air diffuser, greeted Lizzie as she stepped into their dim, one-bedroom flat. When had they stopped complaining to the landlord about the smell? When had they stopped talking about moving somewhere nicer? Cleaner? Bigger? Twelve months, they’d said. Twelve months of rotating which one of them slept on the sofa, whilst the other two shared the double bed, and cold showers two days out of three because there was only enough hot water in the mornings for one person. Twelve months and they would have enough money to go travelling. That had been the plan, anyway. The flat in an apartment block with nine others, nestled in between two high-rise council estate towers in All Saints, east London, had been home now for six years.

  Lizzie sighed, the breath leaving her body in broken shudders. She dropped her bag on the floor but didn’t bother shrugging off her jacket. The autumn air carried the first hints of winter, and they’d yet to unearth the oil heaters from the back of the hall cupboard.

  ‘Lizzie?’ Jaddi’s voice carried from the living room.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lizzie said, stepping into the room and flicking on the light.

  ‘Oh, that’s better, thanks.’ Jaddi slid the laptop from her lap and placed it on the floor before standing up. ‘How did it go? I thought you were going to text me?’

  ‘Sorry, I forgot.’ Lizzie flopped onto the sofa and rubbed her hands over her face.

  ‘What happened?’ Jaddi asked.

  Lizzie shook her head underneath her hands.

  ‘Oh, honey.’ Jaddi stood up and a moment later the sofa cushion shifted and she felt Jaddi’s body beside her. ‘So does that mean more treatment?’

  ‘I said, no.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wanted me to sign up for some clinical trial where they have no idea if what they’re pumping into my body will kill me as quickly as the tumour. So I said no.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Please, Jaddi,’ Lizzie snapped, rubbing her hands harder against her face. ‘I’m done explaining myself for one night. The rounds of radiotherapy didn’t work. The tumour is still there, but I can’t go through it again, OK? I’m done.’

  ‘Do you know how long?’

  Lizzie dropped her hands from her face and waited for the emotion to overwhelm her. It didn’t. She felt nothing. ‘Dr Habibi said six months, as a best guess.’

  Jaddi didn’t reply. She stood up and stepped to the windowless kitchen area behind the sofa. Lizzie listened to the clinking of bottles in the fridge door and a cupboard open then shut.

  ‘I got us some fizz,’ Jaddi said, walking back to the sofa with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘Just in case, you know? But what the hell, we should have a drink.’

  ‘I thought we said no more Prosecco.’ Lizzie pointed to the large world-map poster on the wall, torn and scuffed at the corners from too much blue tack over the years. Next to the map was a line of pink Post-its, each with a number written on it – their savings. The amount had risen steadily at first, as they had tallied what was left from their salaries at the end of every month. Then there had been the wedding of a mutual friend. New outfits, a gift, hotel and travel costs. A month had gone by without a Post-it. Then another, and another. Lizzie couldn’t remember the last time they’d put one up. ‘We’re supposed to be saving again, remember?’

  ‘Does it matter now?’ Jaddi asked. ‘I’d promise to forgo a couple of cappuccino’s next week to make up for it but …’ Jaddi’s voice trailed off.

  ‘You can still go without me,’ Lizzie said, taking the bottle from Jaddi and twisting the cork until it popped into her hands. ‘Next year.’ The thought of not travelling the world with Jaddi and Samantha like they’d always planned; the thought of next year – a year she wouldn’t see – caused the colours to return to her eyes and a panic to spin and twirl in her stomach. Lizzie blinked until the colours disappeared. She had to focus on living, on the months she had.

  ‘Where’s Samantha?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Working late again. She’s staying at David’s tonight, so we’ve got the bed. She thought you might like a decent night’s sleep.’

  ‘I’d rather have seen her and slept on the sofa,’ Lizzie said, gazing out the window, her eyes following the distant blinking lights of an aeroplane, climbing higher and higher until it disappeared from view.

  ‘David’s asked Sam to move in with him.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Last week. She wanted to wait until you’d had the results back before telling you.’ Jaddi shrugged again before tipping a long mouthful of Prosecco into her mouth.

  ‘So travelling is out of the question for you guys anyway, then? If we have to split the rent two ways, then one, you’ll never have any money left to save.’ Lizzie’s eyes felt drawn back to the map on the wall, and the red-dot stickers, like an outbreak of chickenpox, that marked the places they wanted to visit.

  Lizzie had a sudden urge to rip the map from the wall and scrunch it into a tight ball.

  Jaddi topped up her glass. The pale liquid fizzed up and over the lip. Jaddi dipped her
head forward and slurped at the foam. ‘I’ll figure something out.’

  Lizzie’s head throbbed in rhythm with her heart. Salty tears stung the skin underneath her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, Lizzie. This isn’t your fault.’

  ‘But you really wanted to travel and—’

  ‘So did you, so did Sam,’ Jaddi said. ‘I wished we’d tried harder to save.’

  ‘We have a little bit of money, don’t we? I was thinking on the tube home that we could use it to go somewhere, just the three of us. It wouldn’t be all the way around the world, but we could see a little bit of it.’

  ‘A two-week holiday?’ Jaddi shook her head.

  ‘I know.’ Lizzie dropped her head against the cushion. ‘But it’s better than nothing.’

  An hour later the numbness of alcohol coated Lizzie’s thoughts. She had six months. She could spend time with her mum and dad. She could watch Aaron train. She could travel somewhere with Samantha and Jaddi. OK, so it wasn’t long enough for her to achieve all the things she wanted, and there was no way that their savings would stretch to all the places she’d wanted to see, but it was enough. Enough to know she wouldn’t spend another second in hospital with her head pinned to that table. She wouldn’t spend another moment of her life swimming in the foggy after-effects of the treatments. It had to be enough. She’d make it enough.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Jaddi leapt from the sofa.

  ‘Got what?’ Lizzie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘It’s perfect.’ Jaddi grabbed her laptop and dropped back to the sofa, her fingers dancing over the keyboard. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have to travel. We have to do it. The three of us. Like we’d planned all along. If we go after Christmas then we’ll have three months to scrape some money together and three months to travel.’

  ‘Sounds great, but where are we going to get three months worth of travelling money from?’ Lizzie drained the last inch of liquid in her glass. The chill and bubbles had gone, leaving a sickly warm tang to burn her throat.

  ‘We’ll crowdfund our trip.’ Jaddi lifted her head, a smile stretching across her face as she stared at Lizzie. Her eyes sparked with excitement, with hope.

  ‘We’ll what?’

  ‘I read this article a few months ago. This couple in America wanted to have a course of IVF but couldn’t afford it. The man set up a website and pleaded with people to donate a dollar to help him and his wife. He put up some photos of them together and wrote this heartbreaking story about how long they’d been trying to conceive, and how much they longed for a baby. Then he shared it on social media, and it went viral. They made enough for the treatment and had enough left over to set up a charity for other couples in the same boat. All we need is a website and a good story. I can’t believe I’ve only just thought about it.’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘You’re kidding? You want to ask strangers to donate a pound for us to go travelling? We’d never get more than the train fare to the airport.’

  ‘We would if it went viral like that American one did. Besides, a pound is just a suggestion, people can give us whatever they want.’

  ‘Yes, but why would anyone give us money? I can see how it worked with the IVF couple, but we can’t expect anyone to give us money because we’re terrible at saving and now I’ve chosen not to have any more treatment. It’s my choice. People won’t understand. They’ll say I’m giving up. That I don’t deserve it. It’s hardly the sympathy vote, is it?’

  Jaddi’s fingers paused; her eyes fixed on a point in the distance. A moment later she started typing again.

  ‘Jaddi?’ Lizzie’s heartbeat quickened as she stared at the determination in Jaddi’s eyes.

  ‘We’ll spin it. It’s just like any of the PR campaigns I’ve worked on. We just have to find a way to hook people.’

  ‘Come again?’ Lizzie scooched across the sofa and peered over Jaddi’s shoulder. What looked like a pale-blue webpage filled the screen. There were no words, just a selfie of the three of them from a trip to the beach last summer. A large blinking cursor waited for a title.

  Jaddi fixed her gaze on Lizzie. ‘Who else knows that you’re choosing not to have treatment?’

  ‘My parents and Aaron, and Dr Habibi, but, Jaddi, we can’t lie.’

  ‘It’s not a lie. There is no treatment for your tumour. Everything else is experimental.’

  ‘We’d be defrauding people.’

  Jaddi shook her head, ‘You said it yourself, there’s no way to know if a clinical trial would work. Your tumour is untreatable; it’s the same thing.’

  Lizzie stared at Jaddi and then the blank website and wished she’d not had so much to drink. Her head struggled to keep up with Jaddi’s ‘act now, think later’ mindset at the best of times.

  ‘It’s lying, Jaddi,’ Lizzie said. ‘Let’s not pretend it’s anything else.’

  ‘But you’re not saying no.’

  ‘You know how desperate I am to travel, but not like this.’

  ‘But what harm will it do?’

  Lizzie opened her mouth to reply but she had no response to Jaddi’s question.

  CHAPTER 66

  Jaddi

  A buzz circled Jaddi’s veins. The alcohol had fuelled something inside of her, creating a clarity she’d never have found without it.

  ‘I don’t feel right about this,’ Lizzie muttered again from the kitchen as she gulped back a glass of water.

  Jaddi looked up from her laptop screen and stared at the pale complexion of her friend. The gruelling months of radiotherapy and scans showed in the dark shadows under Lizzie’s eyes, and the way her skin sunk in under her cheekbones.

  Jaddi clenched her teeth together and squeezed until the hurt passed. She desperately wanted to beg Lizzie not to do this, to grab her by the arm and drag her back to the hospital and sign her up for that trial herself. But she couldn’t. This was Lizzie’s decision, and however much it hurt, Jaddi had to support her, no matter what.

  It had been painful for Jaddi to watch Lizzie’s suffering, but more than that, it had gnawed away at Jaddi that there’d been nothing she could do to help. Until now. Now she could offer her friend the support she needed, and no matter what it took, Jaddi would find a way to get them around the world.

  Lizzie dropped back onto the sofa and rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Even if I did get on board with lying to complete strangers, what about my mum and dad, and Aaron? They know the truth, which means we’ll be asking them to lie too. And what about Samantha? She’s the most honest person I know. There’s no way she’d go along with it. She’d never understand or stop trying to convince me to change my mind.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Jaddi said. ‘We shouldn’t tell Sam.’

  ‘Think about what you’re saying, Jaddi. Samantha’s our best friend, we can’t lie to her.’

  ‘I know she’ll be pissed afterwards if she finds out we lied, but she’ll forgive us when she realises why we did it. She’ll see this was the only way for the three of us to travel the world together.’

  ‘And what about my family? I can’t ask them to lie. They’ve been through enough.’

  ‘It’s not like we’re asking them to be a part of it. It’s just one of a million fundraising websites.’

  Lizzie’s silence ramped up the buzz zigzagging through her. Lizzie was wavering, and that was all the go-ahead she needed. Jaddi returned her focus to the blank web page, her fingers poised on the keys.

  ‘The Girl with Three Months to Live,’ Jaddi said over the tapping of the keyboard. ‘That’s what we’ll call it.’ Jaddi smiled. It was the perfect title. The perfect plan.

  ‘Three?’

  ‘It’s just a title. Like I said, we’ll need some time to raise the money.’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘I can’t think about this anymore. I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Jaddi nodded. Without Lizzie’s doubts she’d be able to f
inish the website tonight.

  ‘Jaddi?’ Lizzie said as she reached the door.

  ‘Yeah?’ she lifted her eyes and smiled at Lizzie.

  ‘Promise me you won’t do anything crazy tonight. Can we talk about this tomorrow when I’m sober and we’ve both had a chance to think about it? What we’re talking about is insane. There is no way it will work, and even if it did, it’s wrong.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Jaddi nodded. ‘Get some sleep, and don’t worry about a thing.’

  A moment later the bedroom door clicked shut, leaving Jaddi alone with the plans racing around her head. She pulled in a long breath and opened her email account. She found Aaron’s email address and began to type. If they had even a chance of getting enough views on their website to make a difference, they’d need Aaron’s help. And Lizzie was right, she couldn’t ask her parents to lie, but Jaddi could. If Jaddi could get Aaron on board and he explained it to their parents, then surely they wouldn’t stand in Lizzie’s way.

  What harm could it do? Jaddi thought again. Her best friend was dying. This, this wasn’t even a lie, more a bending of the truth. Lying to Samantha wouldn’t be easy, but Sam would understand eventually, if she found out at all that is. They had to focus on the bigger picture – fulfilling Lizzie’s dream, all of their dreams, to travel, whilst they still could. How they made it happen didn’t matter.

  CHAPTER 67

  Samantha

  Biting air sliced through Samantha as she strode along the empty street. A row of street lamps cast orange pools of light on the damp sidewalk. Shadows stretched out from the alleyways between buildings, made by the lights from the apartments above. The rain and sleet had stopped, leaving behind a cold, clear night, but Samantha barely noticed.

  Her two best friends, her only friends, her family, had lied to her. Did they really believe that a lifetime of experiences could be crammed into three meagre months? The lengths Lizzie and Jaddi had gone to, the number of smaller lies they’d told to mask the big one, the depth of the deceit, it stabbed at her over and over. How could they do this to her?